[2][4][5][6][7] The pale-winged trumpeter is a chicken-like bird with a long neck and legs and a hump-backed profile.

They are almost entirely black, with a white hindwing and purple, green, and bronze iridescence on the outer wing coverts.

It forages on the forest floor for fallen ripe fruit which makes up 90% of its diet.

The remainder of its diet is invertebrates like beetles and ants and occasionally small vertebrates like snakes.

The female will lay her clutch in a shallow tree cavity that is an average of 11 meters off the ground and free of vines or other vegetation to avoid the risk of nest predation.

[10][8] Pale-winged trumpeters have cleaning symbiosis, a form of mutualism, with ungulate species like the gray brocket deer as they are ectoparasite removers.

This cleaning symbiosis provides nutritional benefit for pale-winged trumpeters as well as reduces the risk of ectoparasite disease vectors for the ungulate.

[8][12] The IUCN originally assessed the pale-winged trumpeter as being of Least Concern but since 2014 has rated it as Near Threatened.